COOL VIDEO, 1925 MACHINE SHOP WITH WOOD FIRED BOILER AND STEAM DRIVEN EQUIP.

EBEBRATT-Ed

TAKE A PEAK. PRETTY COOLhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WXHNBMLZZM

JakeCK

That is awesome. It really does help one appreciate our modern power tools today even more. More power, simpler, SAFER...

PC7060

I love that guy’s talk about the equipment and  down to earth attitude about making his video.  I’ll have to go check out his channel.  I’d love to know more about the history of his shop.  

When I was a kid in the Midwest there was an old grain elevator with belt drive conveyors and lifts in my town. It was built with 2 x 12 lumber laid and nailed together on flat and was over 100 foot tall. It had a vertical belt that you with foot pads on it that you could stand on and ride on all the way to the top of the elevator.  

I used to go around to the elevator and look at all that equipment and got to know the old guy that ran it. My parents would’ve had a fit if they knew what I was doing.  But that was before parents all got frightened by America’s most wanted series and out of sight was really out of mind.🥴
Later on the elevator caught fire and burned to the ground. My families house was probably 10 blocks away and my dad said they could feel the heat from there.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@JakeCK, "SAFER"? LOL,

I hope OSHA never sees that place. I have visions of a belt letting as someone walks by.

mattmia2

have visons of a belt dragging someone by by the hair.

PC7060

@mattmia2 - agree. You should see the 40hp steam engine he updated to in episode 21. Monster unit with 40” flywheel sitting right in the middle of the shop. 
During the install of the large engine, David (main guy) points out the old 5hp engine had more than enough power for the shop but couldn’t pass up the chance to get the large one.  The 40hp engine was built around 1880 and looked as though it had never been used in production.  

ratio

Amazing. We just retired our old shear a few years ago (tin knocker shop), it had a dinosaur hide belt on it, even if it was only for an electric motor. We couldn't find anyone to rebabbit the flywheel bearings.

They don't make 'em like that any more.

mattmia2

isn't rebabbiting the bearings sort of a diy operation?

i don't know wat he was talking about with salvaging leather belts. i'm pretty sure you can still buy new leather belting.

BobC

We had a 1912 paper shear that had a monsterous 2HP motor and a four ft flywheel that weighed several hundreds of pounds driven by a couple of v belts (retrofitted in the 40's). We used it to cut the paper strips that insulated the layers in transformers. OSHA took one look at that in the 90's and had a cow.

I had to design a two handed trigger system so nobody could engage the flywheel with their arm in the 42" way of that beast. I did it by using a solenoid to block the engagement lever that dropped the pawl on that flywheel. The boss was delighted it only cost a little over a hundred dollars. OSHA couldn't believe what i did but they agreed it made the machine safe enough. That was a great machine much better than modern ones, just like woodworking machines the more cast iron the better the tool.

EBEBRATT-Ed

It amazes me what they could do back then considering the tools they had to work with.

I got called in to try and fix an old ventilation fan in a church basement. This fan was about 8' in diameter driven by a flat belt.

The problem was the flat belt kept coming off as the old sheaves were worn.

So by measuring the sheaves and with the motor rpm the fan rpm was about 180.

We calculated new sheaves but the problem was no belt the length we needed was available. So I came up with the Idea of using that power twist belt with the adjustable links and it worked pretty well.

mattmia2

A store I worked in briefly had an ancient gravity furnace with some sort of blower added in the bonnet and it had this huge sheave the size of the bonnet, it also used a huge v-belt.

You could always have added an intermediate shaft or i think you can still get flat belt sheaves.